What happened to rock?
Seriously. What happened?
When did it become “selling out” to do anything that doesn’t sound like you’re trying to emulate a hard-edged hard-rock group of the mid 1990’s?
Seriously. What happened?
When did a clean tone guitar or acoustic guitar automatically bar someone from being able to call their music “rock”?
Seriously. What happened?
When did actually singing become taboo? When did “good vocals” become someone yelling at the top of their lungs?
Seriously. What happened?
When did one genre of music sounding almost exactly the same for 15 years become acceptable? It’s never been acceptable in the past. Even as late as 1992, if there was a group in any genre that even sounded remotely like 1989 they were considered old news. But now—now you can sound like any rock band between 1993 and 2000 and be considered the sound of 2007. Well isn’t that nice.
All I know is, rock went from standing for musical rebellion to TOTAL MUSICAL CONFRMITY with a badass appearance and more distortion than ever to make up for a lack of creativity (we can thank the grunge era for that). The 80’s didn’t help with the awful butt rock and hair bands—that’s what set the stage for what happened to rock in the 90’s—but at least the 80’s had change going on!
Don’t get me wrong–the 90’s had some really good bands, but in constantly cloning the sound of that period, we have lessened the greatness of those good bands. Now they just sound like “generic alternative” because we’ve overplayed/overperformed that sound for WAY too long.
Even groups like Tool that everyone makes such a big deal about—they’re nothing more than a big conglomeration of 1993-1998. Yeay—they’ve taken the best of the best from that period. So what—it’s old news! Get out of the 90’s people! Move on!!!
Mix styles from the past with today, and not just the 90’s (or butt rock 80s)—there are a couple hundred years that people can easily take bits and pieces from. In rock there are around 50 years to take things from! What is so f**king hard about grabbing music from more than one decade?
Most of the time, the reason why people are unwilling to do other styles is because they’ve been led to believe that doing anything else would be “selling out” because the 90’s represents the hardest edge that rock has ever seen, and people aren’t willing to give that up to be able to live in 2007—they want to believe that side of rock will live forever. Well guess what? It’s dead. Being “badass” back then was cool. Now it just looks absurd. That’s why it’s not heard very often on POP/top-40 radio—you have to listen to an “alternative” rock station to hear it now on a regular basis. In the 90’s, IT REALLY WAS TRUE that if you didn’t do hard-edge-grungy-thrashy-sounding rock, you most likely WERE selling out. Those times have been gone for about 8 years. Now, going softer in one’s sound is what is innovative (or country-rock, or jazz-rock, or [pick-a-style-or-decade]-rock), and going harder-edge is what is the most cliché–it’s really not possible to get any more cliché.
If people weren’t so concerned with keeping rock like the 90’s, it would actually still be a substantial part of top 40 radio. Unfortunately, rap and r&b and hip-hop has taken over the spotlight, that and the message that you should spend all your money on underwear-showing name-brand jean-shorts that look like baggy capris with t-shirts down to the knees, bling, and hydraulics for your car because the man is keeping you down.
Maybe if rock starts offering something NEW instead of the 90’s sound, it will start to become popular again. Oh wait, that’s not what you want, that would be selling out, so keep doing the same thing because that’s what being “innovative” is–that’s how you avoid “selling out”… yeah right. Oh wait—let me use a 90’s word: NOT!
Whether “rockers” want to admit it or not, top 40 radio thrives on innovation mixed with hooks. Any one style may be short lived, but that’s what keeps things fresh. People ARE starting to get tired of the repetetive rap/r&b sound, and something new is going to be QUITE welcome. This is the best time to be innovative. This is the best time to get out of the 90’s.
Selling out is when you give your song to a large corporation to use in their commercials. It’d be like if you heard “All you need is Dove” (instead of “All you need is love” by the Beatles) in a Dove commercial. That’s selling out. It’s not when you actually make something innovative.
they spinnin nigga they spinnin!